Brendan Rodgers hailed Celtic’s Champions League mentality after blowing St Johnstone away as he took aim at those who slagged their playing style last season.
The Hoops boss admitted his side are bang in form ahead of faint Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday on the back of the six goal Saints slaughter. Kyogo notched a double, with Paulo Bernardo, Callum McGregor, Daizen Maeda and Adam Idah also on target in a devastating display as the Parkhead men maintained their perfect start to the season. Rodgers said: “All the noise beforehand was about Dortmund but I wanted a Champions League mentality here.
“I thought the boys were absolutely brilliant. I was really, really pleased. We wanted to keep out rhythm going. I look at the speed in the team, I look at the hunger in the team. Yeah, not bad for a team that doesn’t play good football. I think that’s what we were told last year, wasn’t it? I think that was the accusation.
“We were too slow and we didn’t play football and we didn’t score enough goals. And so it’s not bad for a team that’s not playing good football.”
Rodgers was thrilled with the quality of the goals – but he insisted there should have been more with a disallowed strike from Maeda in the first half after VAR spotted a foul from Auston Trusty. He said: “It should never have been disallowed. Austin loses his marker and their player steps into his space and bumps him.
“But then, again, we pick ourselves up, we go, we play some great football and score some really, really good goals. When I first came in here, people obviously talked about goals and strikers, they’re not scoring enough goals. But if you follow my teams and especially my time up here, I like the goals to come from all areas of the field, at the top end and in the midfield area.”
Rodgers revealed a decision will be made on Sunday over Cameron Carter-Vickers, with the defender struggling with a toe injury ahead of Dortmund. Trusty slotted in without any fuss last night and the Hoops boss said: “I thought Auston was excellent tonight. You’ve seen his pace, you’ve seen his power. He’s playing off that right side, but he’s got good balance in his game. I thought he did very, very well. So if Cam’s not available, then we have someone that can come straight in.”
Rodgers knows Celtic will face a massive step up in class in Germany – but he’s convinced his men can cause a major shock.
He said: “Dortmund a good team with top players. They were Champions League finalists last season but it’s an exciting game for us.
“We know it’s a tough game.
“Make no bones about it. This is a team on a really, really high level. We’re top players. But I’m really looking forward to seeing how we measure up against that.
“Can we get a result? Why not? We go there with good attributes in the team. The physicality and the running power that we have.
“You know you’re going to be in moments of stress when you’re away, but you can see our mentality and how we defend and how compact we are and how tight we are. In those moments when you do have to do that, then when you break out of that, you’ve got speed in your front line. that can really, really hurt. But we’re on to no illusions.”